Posts Tagged ‘Unemployment’
Rishi Sunak: New (and Old) Schemes and Measures for the Unemployed.
Agenda for the Out-of-Work.
The news this Morning.
“In a speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Monday, Mr Sunak will promise new funding to help people leaving the scheme and support for over-50s looking for work, while his ‘kickstart’ scheme will also be extended.”
Metro: Rishi Sunak to announce £500,000,000 extension to ‘plan for jobs’
“Chancellor Rishi Sunak has not ruled out unemployment rising now the furlough scheme has ended, but told Sky News the government is “throwing the kitchen sink” at helping people find new roles and learn new skills. “
“In a speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester today, Mr Sunak will outline fresh funding for schemes designed to increase the chances of employment for those looking for work.“
Sky gives some sketchy details ahead of of today’s speech.
Within the chancellor’s new £500m package of support is an extension of the Kickstart scheme – which provides funding to create new jobs for 16 to 24-year-olds at risk of long-term unemployment – until the end of March.
Mr Sunak is also extending a Job Entry Targeted Support (JETS) scheme – for those who have been unemployed for more than three months – by another year; and he is extending a Youth Offer of guaranteed support for all young people on Universal Credit until the end of 2025.
In addition, the chancellor is extending the £3,000 incentive for firms to take on apprentices until the end of January; he will expand support from work coaches for those on Universal Credit; and he will prioritise those who have left furlough and are looking for work on Universal Credit through the Job Finding Support service u
Within the chancellor’s new £500m package of support is an extension of the Kickstart scheme – which provides funding to create new jobs for 16 to 24-year-olds at risk of long-term unemployment – until the end of March.
Mr Sunak is also extending a Job Entry Targeted Support (JETS) scheme – for those who have been unemployed for more than three months – by another year; and he is extending a Youth Offer of guaranteed support for all young people on Universal Credit until the end of 2025.
In addition, the chancellor is extending the £3,000 incentive for firms to take on apprentices until the end of January; he will expand support from work coaches for those on Universal Credit; and he will prioritise those who have left furlough and are looking for work on Universal Credit through the Job Finding Support service until the end of December.
(Job Finding Support
Job Finding Support (JFS) is part of the government’s Plan for Jobs initiative. Job Finding Support offers tailored one-to-one support to help you back into work. It’s aimed at people who have been unemployed for up to 13 weeks, and it will help you develop the skills and confidence to find and secure new employment. Your work coach will be able to advise whether JFS is right for you and if you are eligible.
If you take part you will be offered at least 4 hours of one-to-one online support focused on what will help you find work, and at least one online group session. You will receive advice and practical support to help with your job search. This could include, but is not limited to:
- help to identify your transferable skills
- advice about growth industries and jobs
- job matching to suitable vacancies and advice/links to suitable employers
- a mock interview with feedback and guidance )
And….
The package will also include a new offer for those aged over 50, with better access to information and guidance on planning for later life for those in work, and more intensive, tailored support for those who have lost their jobs.
Thérèse Coffey has got the message.
She has plans for those on disability benefits.
…she wants to focus on “what people can do, rather than the benefit system being driven currently by what you cannot do”.
Ms Coffey’s comments appear to mark a new push towards pushing people who claim disability or sickness payments towards work.
She said far more people than she expected are in the ‘support group’ – where work is not necessary – of Employment and Support Allowance, which for many is part of Universal Credit.
She also warned more young people than she expected were claiming Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – which is paid regardless of whether people work – due to mental health issues.
Big Rise in Unemployment.
Unemployment hits 5-year high as 828,000 jobs disappear.
This is not surprising. You only to walk in our town centre to see that it is not probable that the fewer number of people there is not just the result of people working at home. Empty shops, closed pubs and cafés, are the most visible signs.
COVID-19: Jobless rate hits 5% as unemployment rises by 202,000 in three months
Sky.
The UK’s unemployment rate has hit 5% for the first time since 2016, according to official figures which suggest over 200,000 people lost their jobs in the three months to November.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also said 828,000 fewer people were on company payrolls through December compared to the pre-COVID-19 crisis month of February 2020.
The latest figures covered a time of continuing restrictions on the economy to curb the spread of the virus, including a four-week November lockdown for England, though the core statistics were better than many economists had predicted.
Big rise in redundancies among young people
BBC.
The number of people out of work in the UK has continued to rise, with those aged 25 to 34 facing the biggest risk of losing their jobs.
In the three months to November, people in that age group had a redundancy rate of 16.2 per 1,000, a fivefold increase on the same period a year earlier.
Unemployment rose to 5% from 4.9% as Covid continued to hit the jobs market.
Some 1.72 million were jobless, the Office for National Statistics said, the highest level in five years.
That was 418,000 more than in the same period the previous year, the biggest increase since late 2009.
Analysis: The unemployment rate hit a four-year high in the autumn and there is a risk it could go higher
The DWP …
Unemployment Rises, Out-of-Work Face Universal Credit Low Benefits.
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Drastic Cuts in Income for Workers Who Become Unemployed.
This is the news today:
BBC>.The unemployment rate grew to 4.5% in the three months to August, compared with 4.1% in the previous quarter.
Meanwhile redundancies rose to their highest level since 2009, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
It comes as the government prepares to impose tough local lockdown rules that will force some businesses to close, potentially leading to more job losses.
UK job figures: why there is worse to come
The big picture is that unemployment is going up while employment and participation in the labour market are going down.
These trends look sure to get worse as the economic recovery seen during the summer peters out and the government cuts back on its support for wages. Rishi Sunak’s response to the figures from the Office for National Statistics was telling.
The DWP are hot off the mark:
What about the social security system for those out of work?
This is the basic problem:
Then there is this:
The Rowntree Trust notes:
They are campaigning for the £20 extra to be made permanent, but no word about the legacy claimants who do not get this.
Somebody has pointed this out:
People on this site have noticed the importance of this:
And so it continues…
Thérèse Coffey plans to help millions back to work.
Coffey: Workers Experienced in Customer Care Can Retrain for New Jobs.
The DWP Minister Thérèse Coffey has stirred up controversy for her latest helpful suggestions.
The Mirror reports,
The government’s welfare chief has prompted fury by suggesting sacked cabin crew can retrain as carers.
Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey claimed thousands of airline staff made redundant after planes were grounded and international travel ground to a halt in the coronavirus crisis should switch careers.
She told The Spectator: “I want to encourage them to perhaps go into teaching or go to college and to be the people who train the next lot of people who are going to do those jobs.”
She added: “How do we help draw out of them the transferable skills that they have, and that could be working in social care?
“It may not be their dream job for the rest of their lives.
“But it may well be very useful: They get more money coming in than if they’re on benefits and it can also provide something really valuable and rewarding.”
Yet Thérèse Coffey has defenders, well, at least one: the person who wrote the article that’s got people hot under the collar..
How Thérèse Coffey plans to help millions back to work
The Work and Pensions Secretary on unemployment, reshuffles and turning cabin crew into nurses
Writing for the popular Alternative View column, Davidus Toricus Spartacus, in the Spectator Katie Ball, née Bollocks (creator of the podcast, Women with Balls, note, this is not made up) begins by noting, “Many things have gone wrong for the government over the past few months, but the welfare system has (so far) held up. “
My main task has been making sure that DWP runs effectively. Being in the news would probably be a sign that it wasn’t,’ she says over lunch in The Spectator’s boardroom. ‘I’m a great believer in the DWP being boringly brilliant — or brilliantly boring.’ After just 13 months in the job, she has already lasted longer than her last five predecessors.
We hope a ‘good lunch’ – the MP is much-loved in Suffolk Coastal for her support for local hostelries, sacrificing many hours visiting pubs, inns and ale-houses to support their work for the community – and this good feed put her in more than usual good spirits.
She thinks the social care industry could benefit from workers experienced in customer care such as air hostesses. ‘How do we help draw out of them the transferable skills that they have and that could be working in social care? It may not be their dream job for the rest of their lives. But it may well be very useful: they get more money coming in than if they’re on benefits and it can also provide something really valuable and rewarding so there are those sorts of things where we are going to try and help people think through what it is they can do, even if it is only for the next two to three years.’
She also supports Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm for air hostesses to become nurses. ‘I’m sure other cabin crew as well who are male could make equally good nurses. It’s just whether or not people want that as a complete lifestyle change.
Reflecting on issues that concern us, the well-being of her soul, she said,
As a practising Catholic who has missed mass on a Sunday only six times in her life, Coffey is more relaxed than most politicians when it comes to discussing faith. One of the upsides of lockdown, she says, was online church services: ‘We just basically did a tour of the UK. I’ve become quite fond of St George’s in Taunton, the St Gerard Majella in Bristol — very nice priest there. Northampton Cathedral is pretty good. A church crawl is a bit different to a pub crawl, isn’t it?’
We take this fine distinction on the word of a seasoned veteran of many a tavern and rustic taproom.
Will she ever be booted out?
She is the second-longest serving Tory work and pensions secretary, but would need to last until the next election to take first place from Iain Duncan Smith. There’s a rumour she confronted the Prime Minister a few months ago at cabinet about reshuffle reports in the press — he told her she wouldn’t be moved anytime soon. When I mention it, she blushes and won’t get into the details of what was discussed, but she does say rumours of hirings and firings are unhelpful, especially in a department where the lifespan of a Secretary of State is measured in weeks and months.
Universal Credit System Failing To Deal With Mass Unemployment.
Today this story looks like stirring the issue of Universal Credit up again, yet again,
This story appeared yesterday.
300,000 universal credit applications in first few months of pandemic deemed ineligible due to savings.
To be honest most people, if not all of us, would not have thought of this, since we do not having anything near the savings limits.
At least 300,000 applications for universal credit during the first four months of pandemic were deemed ineligible because those trying to claim had over £16,000 in savings or their partners were deemed to earn too much under strict means-tested welfare rules, according to official figures obtained by the Labour party.
The article continues,
About 26% of new universal credit claimants are from managerial, administrative and professional backgrounds, according to findings by the ESRC-funded Welfare at a Social Distance academic research project, a trend that may bring fresh scrutiny of a welfare system designed primarily for people on low incomes.
Daniel Edmiston, a lecturer in social policy at the University of Leeds, said the benefits system was unable to keep pace with real-life living expenses for many entering it as a result of Covid-19: “First-time claimants are often surprised by the amount they receive, and the UK’s flat-rate system of payments, given the contributions they have previously paid into the system.”
There are currently about 6 million people on universal credit, twice as many as before the pandemic. A surge in benefit applicants is expected this autumn as furlough support winds down and hundreds of thousands of jobs are cut.
This again is something we would find odd that anybody did not know about, and by ‘we’ I mean not just people on benefits now, but our friends and those we know, many of whom have been unemployed.
A Guardian investigation, in which more than 200 people submitted accounts of their first-time experience of universal credit after losing their job under Covid-19, revealed shock and surprise at the tight restrictions on eligibility – and the parsimoniousness of what is available to those who manage to qualify for support.
Emma Dempsey, 32, a freelance TV producer who was refused both universal credit and financial help through the self-employed income support scheme, told the Guardian: “I have paid taxes all my working life … I feel the state has completely broken its social contract with me.”
As this comment indicates on the same topic,
Ben Claimant continues and retweets this:
I already know people on benefits who’ve been pushed out onto the street, into temporary/emergency accommodation. I bet plenty here do too. This is not news for us.
What is being done to prevent this now spiralling out of control?
Here is another aspect to benefit poverty:
Asked about this Ms Coffey has said,
Ms Coffey replied: “Well Mr Chairman, you’ll be aware it was a one-year measure introduced by the Chancellor as part of the £9.4m injection into the welfare support for people in this difficult time.”
She continued: “As it stands, I think it’s fair to say the legislation does automatically come to an end, but I will be open with you in that a lot of these discussions on what we continue to do with welfare support are still in active discussions with The Treasury.”
Mr Timms sought clarification on Ms Coffey’s response and asked: “So that particular point remains under review at the moment?”
Ms Coffey confirmed that it was and said: “Yes, there’s a number of different elements and I think more broadly, we’ve been thinking carefully about our spending review which is under way.”
She went on to explain how the Budget would normally be the time for discussing these matters, but as it has been postponed until “early 2021” Ms Coffey said the DWP would need to have a “separate process in how we take that forward in our consideration.”
So it stands at this:
Ipswich Unemployed Action. 
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